Hi,

I have an outside outlet that is not GFCI. I wish to add a GFCI outlet.
Normally this would be no problem as the wiring is pretty straight forward.
However, on this particular outlet, the upper outlet (of the two) is wired
to a switch inside the house and the lower outlet is always on. So instead
of having ground (copper), neutral (white) and hot (black) to wire, I have
ground, neutral, hot and a red wire which I assume is a second hot.

How do I handle this? I wish to keep the outlet the way it is today with
one switched and one always on.

Alan

Alan wrote:
Hi,

I have an outside outlet that is not GFCI. I wish to add a GFCI outlet.
Normally this would be no problem as the wiring is pretty straight forward.
However, on this particular outlet, the upper outlet (of the two) is wired
to a switch inside the house and the lower outlet is always on. So instead
of having ground (copper), neutral (white) and hot (black) to wire, I have
ground, neutral, hot and a red wire which I assume is a second hot.

How do I handle this? I wish to keep the outlet the way it is today with
one switched and one always on.

Alan



is the switch fed by a circuit that leaves the outlet, or is it fed
seperately? if its fed seperately, try putting the gfci somewhere that
it can feed both of those circuits and then you can use a regular outlet
outside as it is now. you can also do a gfci circuit breaker I
believe. Not sure what is code though.



--
Respectfully,


CL Gilbert

"CL (dnoyeB) Gilbert" wrote in message
...
Alan wrote:
Hi,

I have an outside outlet that is not GFCI. I wish to add a GFCI outlet.
Normally this would be no problem as the wiring is pretty straight
forward. However, on this particular outlet, the upper outlet (of the
two) is wired to a switch inside the house and the lower outlet is always
on. So instead of having ground (copper), neutral (white) and hot
(black) to wire, I have ground, neutral, hot and a red wire which I
assume is a second hot.

How do I handle this? I wish to keep the outlet the way it is today with
one switched and one always on.

Alan

is the switch fed by a circuit that leaves the outlet, or is it fed
seperately? if its fed seperately, try putting the gfci somewhere that it
can feed both of those circuits and then you can use a regular outlet
outside as it is now. you can also do a gfci circuit breaker I believe.
Not sure what is code though.



--
Respectfully,


CL Gilbert


Unfortunately, the outlet and switch come straight from the breaker and
there is no other outlet upstream that I can put the GFCI on.

Any other suggestions?

"Alan Whitehouse" wrote in message
...
"CL (dnoyeB) Gilbert" wrote in message
...
Alan wrote:
Hi,

I have an outside outlet that is not GFCI. I wish to add a GFCI outlet.
Normally this would be no problem as the wiring is pretty straight
forward. However, on this particular outlet, the upper outlet (of the
two) is wired to a switch inside the house and the lower outlet is
always on. So instead of having ground (copper), neutral (white) and
hot (black) to wire, I have ground, neutral, hot and a red wire which I
assume is a second hot.

How do I handle this? I wish to keep the outlet the way it is today
with one switched and one always on.

Alan

is the switch fed by a circuit that leaves the outlet, or is it fed
seperately? if its fed seperately, try putting the gfci somewhere that
it can feed both of those circuits and then you can use a regular outlet
outside as it is now. you can also do a gfci circuit breaker I believe.
Not sure what is code though.



--
Respectfully,


CL Gilbert


Unfortunately, the outlet and switch come straight from the breaker and
there is no other outlet upstream that I can put the GFCI on.

Any other suggestions?

Replace the breaker with a GFCI breaker

"Alan" wrote in
:

Hi,

I have an outside outlet that is not GFCI. I wish to add a GFCI
outlet. Normally this would be no problem as the wiring is pretty
straight forward. However, on this particular outlet, the upper outlet
(of the two) is wired to a switch inside the house and the lower
outlet is always on. So instead of having ground (copper), neutral
(white) and hot (black) to wire, I have ground, neutral, hot and a red
wire which I assume is a second hot.

How do I handle this? I wish to keep the outlet the way it is today
with one switched and one always on.

Alan



Assuming you want a GFCI protected outlet with one switched and one
unswitched receptacle in the same gang, unless you can find a seperately
wireable GFCI, I think you are stuck. On a normal outlet, there is a tab
you can break to seperate the outlets, the cheap GFCI I just looked at
didn't have anything obvious.

On Sat, 06 Aug 2005 23:12:02 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 6 Aug 2005 14:51:37 -0400, "Alan" wrote:

Hi,

I have an outside outlet that is not GFCI. I wish to add a GFCI outlet.
Normally this would be no problem as the wiring is pretty straight forward.
However, on this particular outlet, the upper outlet (of the two) is wired
to a switch inside the house and the lower outlet is always on. So instead
of having ground (copper), neutral (white) and hot (black) to wire, I have
ground, neutral, hot and a red wire which I assume is a second hot.

How do I handle this? I wish to keep the outlet the way it is today with
one switched and one always on.

Alan


They make GFCI receptacle/switch combos but the local BORG may not
have them. Try an electrical supply house if you can't find one at the
big box.


Another solution that should meet your requirements assuming that what
you said is true, they are on one circuit with no other outlets. (I
am assuming that the one circuit includes both the switched and
unswitched outlets).

Install a GFCI outlet near your breaker panel (you can never have
enough outlets right?) Use the circuit that feeds your existing
outside circuit and loop the protected load side of the GFCI to the
outdoor outlet. Every outlet on that circuit will then receive GGCI
protection. Make sure that you also have protective ground and
neutral continuity.

Beachcomber

"They make GFCI receptacle/switch combos but the local BORG may not
have them. Try an electrical supply house if you can't find one at the
big box"

That doesn't solve the problem. What he has is an outlet that is wired
so that one half of the outlet is wired direct, while the other half is
wired to a switch somewhere else. This is fairly common. The only
solutions are to either put one GFCI in another upstream outlet that
feeds both, put one GFCI upstream in both circuits, or put in a GFCI
breaker. I think the latter is the easiest and best.

Looks like I will go with a GFCI breaker at the panel. Thanks for the
advice though.

Alan


wrote in message
oups.com...
"They make GFCI receptacle/switch combos but the local BORG may not
have them. Try an electrical supply house if you can't find one at the
big box"

That doesn't solve the problem. What he has is an outlet that is wired
so that one half of the outlet is wired direct, while the other half is
wired to a switch somewhere else. This is fairly common. The only
solutions are to either put one GFCI in another upstream outlet that
feeds both, put one GFCI upstream in both circuits, or put in a GFCI
breaker. I think the latter is the easiest and best.